Generalismo: (n.)

Noun

One who speaks with absolute authority, while being the authority on absolutely nothing.

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As a member of the human race with eyeballs, ears, and a functioning neocortex, I’ve developed many reasons for loathing Donald Trump. With any luck, if you’re reading this, you’ve got a few of your own. Just in case you want to borrow some, here are a few of mine. Ya know… just for kicks:

He’s a greasy flimflam man who’s conned, corrupted, and bilked thousands of people out of their money. He’s a low rent panic merchant, sowing fear and hate with abandon. He’s a hysterical, thin-skinned reactionary. A misogynistic twerp. A crooked huckster. An exultant failure. A wrath-brimmed bully. A gaudy dilettante. He’s a bigot. A brute. A sleaze. An ass. A fool.

During his candidacy alone, he:

Cheerfully advocated for torture; the construction of a border wall with no sane explanation how to fund it; he suggested our military should murder families simply under suspicion of their being related to terrorists; blithely stated that abortion should be criminalized; he’s mocked the disabled; banned journalists; he somehow remains in thrall to the misapprehension that dousing an object in gold renders it a veneer of elegance. Drunk on a cocktail of wrath, vanity, and good ol’fashioned racism he prolonged a fight with the parents of a soldier who died in service for his country; he actually called Hillary Clinton the devil, and kicked a crying baby out of one of his rallies. 

Class act, this guy.

Donald Trump is a man who stands in cross-armed opposition to the most basic civic virtues of this country. And grins.

He is a pauper of the soul.

Nothing about this is shocking. We all know about it. Because he’s been this way for as long as he’s been famous. And he’s been famous, I’m sorry to say, for my entire time on this planet.

But still… there’s something about Donald Trump that I loathe beyond all else. It rivals his vulgarity, his combativeness, his classless narcissism.

It’s his vagueness.

His sniveling, abject vagueness… and the cowardice that’s behind it.

Donald Trump has turned vagueness into the most devastating weapon of our age. Forget about the hats – vagueness was the brand of his entire campaign. And now that he won, it continues to be the grease with which he lubricates his bullshit machine.

It’s how he’s soared to such infamy… on the oily wings of sloganeering, bullshit, and innuendo.

Vagueness. It’s the sludge that’s toxified our discourse, threatened our civic order, and advanced his own personal agenda. It’s the act of a spineless, soulless twerp without purpose or conviction… and if we had even a sip of the quick spirit of our founders we’d have driven him and his nest of zealots, cranks, creeps, nazis, and goalongs into the sea with the rest of the bottom-feeders.

When Donald Trump speaks, facts evaporate. They are rendered irrelevant. Utterly. We need only know that with Trump, we’ll get the “best” of whatever’s there to offer. The very best. Better than you could ever believe. Many people say it’s the best. Many very, very smart people.

We joke about this.

Even America’s would’ve-been VP, and youth group talent show moderator, Tim Kaine has joked about this. We need not know the details of Trump’s plans. It’ll all be great. The best. Believe me.

Think of pretty much any Trump statement. He justifies every bizarre, racist, myopic, or invented truth by claiming to have heard them from, “plenty of people” or, “something I read” or, “people [who] tell me.”

When asked who he’d nominate to the Supreme Court, Trump responded: “really great legal scholars.”

When asked about his plan to cut corporate taxes in the face of our country’s $19 trillion dollar deficit, Trump said: “That’s right. We’re gonna grow the economy so much…”

In an interview with Scott Pelley, Trump mentioned how we need to “get back” jobs from Mexico, China, and Japan. “Everybody’s taking our jobs,” Trump explained. When asked how he would get these jobs back, Trump responded, confidently: “You get em back.”

Want to know about his economic team? “I have the smartest people on Wall Street lined up already.”

How will he finance civic improvements and his general attempt to “make America great again”? “We’re going to absolutely be able to pay for it. My economy will expand so rapidly– we’re going to take jobs back from other countries. And we will be able to pay for it.”

When challenged by NJ Senator (future president and captain of my soul) Cory Booker, Trump insisted: “I know more about Cory Booker than he knows about himself.”

Do you hear the innuendo? Do you see the circular logic? The bullshit. Can you smell it?There is no detail here. Not a jot. Not a comma. There’s no thinking. There’s no plan. No consideration. No dedication. No belief. There’s nary the flicker of a fucking neuron.

His every sentence is the rank exhaust of a mind unburdened by thought, consideration, or expertise.

He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And what’s worse… he doesn’t care.

Donald Trump knows about, cares about, and understands nothing. Nothing. He’s an idiot. And were this a different time, a different country, and I suppose were human beings not the dullards they seem so dead set to be… this would be an issue. But he wears his idiocy with gaudy confidence. Absolute, unquestioned, ironclad, fulminating confidence.

And this is what makes him so powerful.

Consider how cowardly this is. The cruelest cowardice. The kind of cowardice that, during wartime, would get you fucking shot. Trump uses this rhetorical vagueness to elide. To slither. To slime his way away from any responsibility for what he says or does. He’s turned the entire country on its head. He’s fomented racial, cultural, and religious fury. He’s urged violence at his rallies. He’s raging, insisting we tear the whole system down around us… yet is bereft of any plausible reason as to why, or any suggestion for what’s to be built after the rubble is swept away.

This is the linguistic equivalent of giving a pistol to an eight-year-old.

This is rhetorical terrorism.

And as such, it renders Donald Trump an enemy of this country, its principles, and its people.

He is a traitor to anyone who thinks, or cares, or loves.

Donald Trump is your enemy.

Let us be rid of him.

And soon.

One thought on “Generalismo: (n.)

  1. A very beautiful and accurate description of a very sad and ugly phenomenon. Thank you for sharing.

    Like

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